Author Archives: Isaiah Beard

About Isaiah Beard

Isaiah's role at Rutgers University Libraries is to establish standards and workflow practices for the digitization and encoding of a wide array of digital assets. His background in digital preservation begins with his avid interest in photography, and in the issues facing the field as it shifts from analog film formats into an increasingly digital landscape. He has researched and developed standards for the preservation of digital assets that have been adopted by a number of prominent agencies, including the Library of Congress, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and members of the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA). An advocate of free and open source software and standards, he volunteers time to projects assisting aspiring artists, photographers, videographers and musicians in using these open technologies to their advantage. Isaiah's current active projects in addition to NJVid include the Rutgers Community Repository (RUcore); and advising developers of the Ubuntu Linux project in matters relating to media format compatibility.

Preserving digital photos: What not to do

Posted on April 6, 2009 by Isaiah Beard

One of the more frequent debates that I see cropping up often in preservation circles is how best to preserve “born digital” photographs: those photos that never began as physical film, but originated on a digital camera. This isn’t an … Continue reading →

Posted in Worst Practices | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Death and Rebirth of an analog format: Polaroid Instant Film

Posted on March 23, 2009 by Isaiah Beard

Some might say its death was long-overdue in an increasingly digital photographic world. Others continue to cling to it and bristle at the thought of having to change to newer imaging technology. Regardless of what side you’re on, the demise … Continue reading →

Posted in Vintage and Analog Formats | Tagged | Leave a comment